The Building of Sisar

بناء مدينة سيسر

Sisar

In al-Baladhuri: Sisar was named for lying in the lows between thirty hilltops — 'thirty heads' — called Sisar Sadkhaniye, 'thirty heads and a hundred springs,' its springs forming a hundred. It and its environs were ever pastures for the Kurds' cattle, holding meadows for the caliph al-Mahdi's herd-beasts and flocks under his mawla Sulayman ibn Qayrat — owner of Sahrat Qayrat at Madinat al-Salam — and his partner Salam al-Tayfuri, Tayfur having been Abu Ja'far al-Mansur's mawla gifted to al-Mahdi. When brigands and robbers multiplied in al-Hadi's caliphate they made the tract their refuge — being the border of Hamadhan, al-Dinawar and Adharbayjan — cutting the roads and sheltering there unmolested; Sulayman and Salam wrote al-Mahdi complaining of the exposure of the beasts and flocks in their charge, and he sent a great army and ordered them to build a city to shelter themselves, their helpers and herdsmen, and to fortify the beasts and flocks within — so they built Sisar, fortified and peopled it, annexing the rustaqs of Manharaj from al-Dinawar, al-Jawdhama from Adharbayjan's Barza kura, Rustaf and Khabanjir, making it a kura under its own amil who received its kharaj. When brigands again multiplied under al-Rashid and wrecked Sisar he ordered its repair and fortification, stationing a thousand men of al-Khaqan's followers under the mawla al-Sufdi — descendants remain. In al-Rashid's last days Murra ibn Ali al-Rudhayni al-Ijli was set over it; Uthman al-Awdi failed to wrest it from him while Murra took most of Adharbayjan from him; Murra kept paying Sisar's kharaj under Muhammad ibn al-Rashid on a muqata'a until the fitna, and it was taken from Asim ibn Murra under al-Ma'mun, returning to the caliphal estates.